


afraid to look up, afraid to let go

by gay_writes_with_mac



Series: Prodigal Son [1]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Brightwell, Dani Powell Backstory, Dani Powell Whump, Do Angst For Characters Other Than Malcolm 2020, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I guess???, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Mac? Writing Hets? It's More Likely Than You Think, Overdosing, Past Drug Addiction, Past Drug Use, but it's definitely in there, it's not a big deal, kinda???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_writes_with_mac/pseuds/gay_writes_with_mac
Summary: Dani Powell hates phone calls. So when she makes one, Malcolm comes running.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Series: Prodigal Son [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019443
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	afraid to look up, afraid to let go

Malcolm isn’t asleep when he gets the call. Which isn’t a surprise; he can’t remember the last time he slept through midnight, and that’s when his phone starts ringing. _Dani._ Dani never calls him. He vividly remembers her threatening him with a few choice suggestions of where she’d stick his phone if he set hers ringing for something that easily could have been a text. When she gave him her number.

And she’d stuck to that line. Malcolm had only ever called her once; the one time she’d gone on a date and told him to check in if the clock got past eleven and she hadn’t texted him. So at 11:05 - no text from her and three from him after eleven - he’d called her. He’ll never forget the relief that hit him like a tank when she picked up, a little breathless, but okay. _She was okay._

He swipes to answer. “You’ve reached Bright.”

“Bright.” She’s breathless again, but not in a good way, not in the giggly, I’m-on-a-date-and-I’m-having-a-blast-way that she’d been breathless the only other time they were on a call. “I - I’m sorry, if you were - were sleeping-”

Apology. Breathless. Confused pattern of speech. He’s already building a profile, one he won’t ever share with her. It’s as natural as breathing. Something’s wrong, that’s easy to tell. Probably not immediate danger. Emotional distress. _Desperation._

“I’m never sleeping,” he says lightly. “It’s barely twelve, Dani. The night is still young.”

She sighs - heaves an audible gasp of relief - and that’s not like her either. “I’m just - I’m glad you picked up.”

“Dani,” he says, gentle. “What’s wrong?”

The only sound on her end is her hitched, ragged breathing for a moment. Finally, she exhales again, another heavy sigh. “Bright, just...can you come over here? I - it’ll be easier to explain here. And I just...I need you here. I need _someone_ here.”

“Yeah.” He’s already pulling shoes on, reaching for his overcoat, grabbing his keys. “I’m coming, Dani. Just hang on.”

Dani’s apartment door is unlocked and he finds himself praying that she opened it just now, knowing he was coming, rather than having left herself vulnerable like that all night. “It’s Bright,” he calls softly, announcing himself to avoid getting her Glock in his face, before pushing open her apartment door.

He’s only been to Dani’s place once; last time, it wasn’t nearly this much of a mess. There are dishes in the sink, dirty clothes on the ground. Her bed doesn’t look like it’s been slept in, but there’s a scratchy woolen blanket tossed haphazardly over her couch. There’s a smashed picture frame in the corner, surrounded in a ring of broken glass like a shattered halo. As he takes in the scene, hovering uncertainly in the doorway, Dani suddenly strides into view. She’s pacing, probably been pacing for some time - there’s a surety to her footsteps. She’s been walking the same path. Her dark curls are a mess. And when he gets a glimpse of her face, her eyes are red, puffy, and bloodshot. There’s something wild behind them. Something desperate, something needy. Like a caged animal, Dani’s desperate for something; something which she’s terrified of getting hold.

“Dani,” he says softly, holding one hand out to her tentatively. “You’re going to wear a path in the floor.”

Dani’s frantic eyes lock onto his; maybe she didn’t even notice he was there before. “Bright,” she says, softly, like a child, and then a half-sob tears its way from her throat.

“I’m here to help, okay?” He slips out of his heavy woolen overcoat, putting it over the back of one of her kitchen chairs. “But I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“You don’t have a profile already?” There’s a hard, jagged edge to her voice now, a sudden contrast to the soft, innocent way she called out to him when he stood in her doorway. It doesn’t sound like Dani. He doesn’t like to think of Dani sounding that angry. “What kind of shit profiler are you? Come on, Bright, look me up and down and tell me what’s wrong with me. It’s what you do.”

“I don’t like to profile my friends.” He takes another step closer to her, but she flinches back and he inches away again, not missing the tiny flash of fear - in her shaking hands and her trembling upper lip and how she closed her eyes for just a second - when he got closer. “I save that for bad people. And you’re the opposite of bad, Dani. I don’t want to pull your secrets out of you. But that means you have to tell me.”

She sways - just for a second, catches herself - but she lost her balance, and as hard as he’s trying not to be a profiler right now, his trained eye doesn’t miss it. “Have you been drinking?” He prompts gently. Even though he’s already sure she has.

There’s a guarded, trapped look in her eyes, like a cornered sheep. “I - I thought it might help…”

“Help with what?” As badly as he wants to get closer to her - sweep her up in his arms and hold her against his chest and run his fingers through her messy black curls and press kisses to her warm forehead and rub his hand down her back - he keeps his distance. The sight of her flinching away from him hurts almost as bad as John Watkins’ knife. “This is what friends do, Dani. You asked me to come and I came. But friends talk to each other. Isn’t that what you told me?”

Dani nods, and there’s a soft wetness glimmering in her eyes now - _please don’t cry, Dani, please don’t cry._ He’s never seen her cry before. He’s not sure he’d know what to do if she did. 

“So please just tell me. Tell me so I can help.”

Dani opens her mouth and then shuts it again, flapping it like a fish, tears starting to trickle down her cheeks now. She wipes them away angrily on the backs of her hands; she’s wearing a sheer off-shoulder top like she was at the night when they went to confront Estimé and he can see the gooseflesh freckling her arms in the chill of the winter night. “A year and a half,” she says finally, and her voice cracks so hard it could split her down the middle. 

“Since your overdose.” It’s not a question. It doesn’t need to be. Dani starts nodding again, bobbing her head up and down and then she can’t stop, nodding frantically as the tears fall faster by the moment, leaving sticky streaks down her cheeks. 

_“Dani._ ” He inches closer again and this time she doesn’t flinch back. “Dani, tell me you didn’t take anything.” Malcolm’s hand starts inching towards the phone in his back pocket. _Do I need to call someone?_

Dani shakes her head quickly, half-doubling over with a sob, hugging her stomach as a soft cry drags itself from her throat. “You didn’t take anything?” Malcolm confirms, and she shakes her head again - she’s not acting like she’s drugged - and his shoulders slump with relief. “But you wanted to?”

Back to nodding. She’s still crying, crying so hard it makes his stomach ache in sympathy, bent over from the force of her sobs - that’s the alcohol lowering her inhibitions or she’d never let him see her this vulnerable. “You thought you were going to relapse.” Malcolm fills in the blanks for her, a cold stone of dread sinking down in his chest. “You _wanted_ to relapse. And that’s why you called me. So I’d stop you.”

“You don’t know _how hard it is-_ ” Dani’s voice rises higher and higher and ends in a wail. She points to the shattered picture frame in the corner, and her hand is shaking so badly she can barely hold it up. “You didn’t see me in withdrawal, you weren’t _here -_ you don’t know how it is when you’re _all on your own_ and you want to start using again but you _can’t_ but you _have to_ -”

Malcolm chances another step forwards, and Dani doesn’t flinch back. She’s shaking, shivering all over from the cold and the cravings. The most unhinged he’s ever seen her. She’s the calm one, the cool one, the collected professional with the poker face and the patience, the one who does everything by the book - except when it comes to this. Something about this sends Dani tumbling. It took her down on the Desir case and it’s taking her down now, ripping her apart from the very foundation. “You’re right. I don’t know. I wasn’t here when you were going through that. But you’re not all on your own. You don’t _ever_ have to be all on your own. I wasn’t here then, but I’m here now. I’ll always be here now.”

“I don’t know what you’re going through.” He risks another step forwards, and now they’re close enough that he could reach out and touch her, but he doesn’t. Not yet. Not after seeing her flinch. He never wants to see that look on her face because of him again. “I can’t. But you can help me know if you tell me. Otherwise I’ll never know. I can’t.”

Dani stares up at him - she wears some kind of heel almost every day. Without it, she’s shorter than him. It’s strange to see her smaller than him. Without warning, she collapses suddenly, falling back against her couch like a puppet with its strings cut, burying her head in her hands as she slumps. Hesitantly, Malcolm sinks down next to her, his hand hovering an inch away from her bare shoulder. “Dani…?”

She’s silent for a moment - unresponsive, thinking - and then turns so that her shoulder falls into the waiting cradle of his hand. She’s cold - so cold to the touch that he nearly jerks back in surprise - but he resists the urge, rubbing small, soothing circles over her bare shoulder. “I don’t even really remember the overdose.” Her voice is raspy, hoarse...broken.

“Estimé told me that I passed out. He said I was barely breathing, clammy, my lips were blue...Gil said I turned grey. Like old ashes. I just remember taking something and then...I was in a hospital bed, I was all on my own, and there were just - there were _needles_ in me-”

Her voice fractures and she stops, trembling. Malcolm squeezes her shoulder encouragingly - she’s still so, so cold. 

“The withdrawal was...I’d been using for two years. And then I just had to _stop..._ my stomach hurt so bad I cried. I had a migraine that wouldn’t go away. I had panic attacks ten times a day. I puked up everything, even water. I sweated until my sheets were soaked. I got on my knees and begged Gil to let me have something, _anything-_ ” Suddenly, she turns her head into the crook of his neck, her tears dripping warm and wet onto his neck. He forces back a shudder at the feeling, slowly wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Dani sighs at his touch, relaxes into his warmth, her hand curling into a fistful of his sweater.

“It was three weeks,” she says softly, and at last she just sounds like _Dani_ again. “Three weeks of...that. I got through it. I don’t know how. JT, Gil...they made me get through it. But still, just sometimes...I want to go back to it. I remember how _good_ I used to feel, and I just...I want that back. I _need_ that back. And I tried to drink through it, and then I broke the picture ‘cause sometimes the pain helps, and then...I called you. ‘Cause I knew you wouldn’t let me do it. And that’s what I needed tonight.”

“You flinched back,” Malcolm says softly. Dani turns to look at him, a curious expression darkening her tear-stained face, and he shifts back slightly - puts some space between them. “When I went to you. You flinched back.”

“Bright-” She shakes her head, already denying it, her hand reaching out for him. Trying to draw him back. “I wasn’t in my right mind-”

“You were afraid. I saw your tells.” Malcolm slowly moves his hand away; takes away the arm from around her shoulders. “I don’t want to be someone who scares you.”

“You’re not.” Dani reaches out again, and this time she grabs him before he can pull his hand away, keeping him with her. “I wasn’t in my right mind, Bright. I’m not scared. Not of you.”

“Someone else…?”

But Dani’s already shaking her head again. “Not tonight. I’m not doing this tonight. I’ll tell you sometime, Bright. I will. I promise. But not tonight. I trust you, Bright. And I wasn’t flinching away from you.”

She tugs on his hand again, pulling him closer, and finally he relents. Dani turns her face into his sweater, leaning her head against his chest, sinking into his warmth, and he accepts it, cards his fingers through her curls, lets his thumbs swipe away the remaining tears still trickling silently down her cheeks.

“I called you because I knew you would come,” Dani says, softly, her voice muffled by his sweater. 

Malcolm huffs a soft laugh, his hand stilling briefly in her hair. “Is that part of my profile?”


End file.
